As we enter the New Year, I will continue to write essays about the threat of our warming world. Even at the coldest time of the year, we are seeing ominous signs that the climate is not only changing, but these changes are coming fast in some areas of the world. The Arctic is warming faster than the mid-latitudes or Equatorial regions, something

The number of acres of forest burning yearly in large Western fires ballooned nine-fold from 1984 to 2015, with climate pollution and natural changes in the weather playing roughly equal roles in driving the deadly trend, research published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded. The study showed that more than a

It happened again. August 2016 was the warmest August on record across the globe. If that news sounds familiar to you, you’re not mistaken. It was, in fact, the sixteenth straight month of record-breaking temperatures, with global average temperature data dating back to 1880. The so-called “Super El Nino”, which lasted from late 2014 through the

An ice-free Northwest Passage was once the stuff of legend. But it’s now becoming the norm thanks to global warming, and commercial freighters to luxury cruise ships are racing to turn a profit off the newest frontier on earth. A satellite image taken on Aug. 9 and published by NASA Earth Observatory shows a nearly ice-free path from the North

May hit the books as the 13th month in a row to bust its heat record, and that’s probably more of a jinx for the climate than three broken mirrors and seven black cats. What else is wacky this week? Find out on the Shum Show with Climate Central’s Multimedia Journalism Fellow, Greta Shum

It wasn’t supposed to happen this fast. Some of the reefs around the Florida Keys are dissolving. They may have crossed a tipping point due to increasing ocean acidification, raising the alarm that climate change impacts in the ocean are continuing to happen at a much quicker pace than scientists previously suspected. Rising carbon dioxide levels

As the world has warmed over the past few decades, climate scientists have increasingly sounded the alarm over the potentially catastrophic impacts that warming could have on the world’s weather. But in the U.S., that message may have been lost on most Americans because their day-to-day weather has actually become more pleasant, according to a new

The past 11 months have been the hottest such months in 135 years of recordkeeping, a streak that has itself set a record and puts in clear terms just how much the planet has warmed due to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. New global temperature data released on Friday by NASA put March at 2.3°F (1.28°C) above the 1951-1980

For much of the country, winter is the fastest warming of the four seasons. Not surprisingly, the average number of especially cold nights during the year is on the decline. Trends are not exactly the same in every location, but overall, the amount of cold is starting to wane.

The world is getting hotter. And hotter, and hotter. As 2015 comes to a close, it will be the hottest year on record, besting the former record holder of 2014 (also known as last year). Nine of the 10 hottest years on record have come since 2005. So let us repeat: The world is getting hotter. You know it. I know it. But maybe your Uncle Peter

Another month, another record. On Monday, NASA released its latest monthly temperature data for the globe. And it’s perhaps no surprise that this November was the warmest on record for the planet. The Japan Meteorological Agency’s dataset also shows the same record warmth for the month. (These stories seem to write themselves, don’t they?)

The planet reached two important climate milestones this year. The globally averaged concentration of CO2 reached 400 parts per million, and the global average temperature climbed to more than 1°C (1.8°F) above pre-industrial levels for the first time since recordkeeping began.